MIND THE GAP! Blog
Our entire nation suffers as the gap between those with enormous wealth and most of the rest of the nation continues to widen. Learn more about the causes and consequences of this huge wealth gap -- and give us your input!

In this ten minute segment from Wednesday's NewsHour on PBS, Paul Solman investigates the repercussions wealth disparity has on our health. His search leads him to conversations with "epidemiologists, former six-figure income
earners who are chronically unemployed and poor teenagers who struggle with
inequality each day" as well as Dr. Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level.

I attended a lunch meeting in the Russell Senate Office Building entitled “Are Investment Incentives Necessary in Corporate Tax Reform?” with Donald Marron, the director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, Rob Atkinson, from the Technology and Innovation Foundation, and Michelle Hanlon, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

How appalling that the cry of “class warfare!” is currently drowning out reasonable people who say that all groups in our nation should pay our fair share in taxes -- and that includes millionaires and billionaires!

In the midst of disheartening data regarding the rise of inequality in our nation, it is encouraging that some communities are taking time to mind the gap by working on measures to mend it. This piece by NPR highlights a new program that encourages lower-income youth to achieve a higher education.

"The ease with which the rich and well educated have shrugged off the recession shouldn’t be surprising; strong winds have been at their backs for many years. The recession, meanwhile, has restrained wage growth and enabled faster
restructuring and offshoring, leaving many corporations with lower production costs and higher profits—and their executives with higher pay."